Daniel Alarcón - At Night We Walk in Circles

And all the while, Noelia sat frozen in her seat. It was extraordinary, the weight she felt, the absolute impossibility of moving. She held her hands tightly in her lap, and gave in to it. Everyone else had gone. This was all part of the play, an extra scene performed just for her, as if to reveal some special secret. This was why they all fear my brother, Noelia remembers thinking. This is why they’re scared of him. Maybe those stories she’d heard were true, after all.

Nelson, Patalarga, and Eric held Jaime, while Henry got to his feet, holding the edge of the stage to steady himself. The prop knife was there, just an arm’s length away, and he grabbed it. With that, Henry turned to face his attacker once more, brandishing it with surprising conviction.

“Come on!” Henry shouted. He was manic, dancing back and forth, and carving the air with his plastic knife. His voice echoed through the nearly empty auditorium. “Come on, you asshole!”

For all Henry’s fury, there was no threat in the spectacle. Jaime eased, and his captors instinctively relaxed with him. They still held him, but without the same force or fear or urgency. Patalarga was afraid his old friend might faint before them.

“Okay,” Jaime said. “Enough. If I wanted to kill this piece of shit, I would’ve done it already.”

He shook himself free. Eric, Nelson, and Patalarga backed off.

At that, Henry stopped. Out of breath, he dropped both arms to his side, still gripping the knife in his left hand. He and Jaime locked eyes.

“Tell me you remember me now,” Jaime said. “Go ahead. Think real hard.”

Henry nodded. “You’re Rogelio’s brother.”

“Good,” said Jaime.

Henry bowed his head. He dropped the plastic knife, and with his sleeve wiped a thin line of blood from his chin. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Jaime raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”

Noelia was still pegged to her seat, watching it all. Henry called out in her direction: “I’m sorry! I’m very sorry!”

It was at this point that she finally snapped to. It was not a play after all; it was real, and once again that strange man was talking to her. His voice, shouted across the auditorium, was ghostly. She stood, and as she rearranged her shawl, noted that they were all looking at her: these men, her brother, the actors, the mayor’s deputy. She took a deep breath and walked down the path Jaime had made only a few moments before, through the carelessly strewn metal chairs, to the foot of the stage, where the lights shone brightest. As she got closer, it was as if the air changed. There was heat pulsing off these men, the lingering remains of the fight. She saw Henry up close and gasped. His right eye had begun to swell, and his shirt was ripped at the collar. He leaned against the stage, as if he might tumble over at any moment.

She turned to her brother.

“Shame on you!”

Jaime shrugged and looked down at his hands, his knuckles, the way one might admire a well-built tool or a machine.

There was quiet.

MUCH LATERI asked Henry about that night. This was back in the city, months after the events recounted here had run their course. I was trying to piece it all together based on versions provided by Patalarga, Noelia, and to a lesser extent, Eric. As for Henry, his recollections were cloudy. He talked at great length about his recovery, the slow easing of pain over the weeks that followed that night; but the play, the fight, its immediate aftermath, that, he said, was all a blur.

Instead he talked about fight scenes in general. The fake kind. He talked about how they are staged; and he seemed more comfortable speaking this way, in the abstract. Like any scene involving large numbers of cast members, Henry told me, fight scenes are complicated and unwieldy. A good one must mimic chaos without being chaotic, must be confusing without being confused. The crowd must delight in the tension, while the actors themselves are perfectly relaxed. Henry ran his fingers through his hair, and leaned forward, briefly animated, evidently pleased with this series of contradictory phrases. Did I get it? Did I understand?

And I began to wonder if he saw it all as a performance. If that night, when the play ended and the attack began; when his past, as represented by Jaime, stood before him, and his friends demanded answers; at that point, was he conscious of himself as a performer?

“I don’t know,” he said. “Jaime kicked the shit out of me. I fell to the ground. I grabbed a plastic knife. I wanted to defend myself. I wanted someone to save me. Is this performing?”

“I’m asking you.”

Henry rubbed his face. He stood from his seat, and raised his shirt with his left hand. “There were bruises here,” he said, pointing to his stomach and chest. “And here. And here. These two ribs”—he pinched one and then the other—“these two were broken.”

“I know. That’s not my question. I didn’t say you were faking it.”

He frowned. “So what are you asking, then?”

“When it was over, were you aware that a delicate negotiation had begun? Were you careful as you were playing it?”

“Of course I was careful. I was scared this man might kill me.”

That night, Jaime wore a grimace, aloof and distant. He wasn’t handsome, Patalarga told me later, but he had “an interesting face.” His too-small mouth stayed closed, lips pressed together with the hint of a smile. People were afraid of him and he enjoyed that. His sleek black hair had gone wild in the skirmish, but he didn’t mind.

“I guess we were expecting him to say something,” Patalarga said, “but he didn’t.”

Instead, it was Noelia who spoke, addressing her brother: “Do they know too?” she asked, her voice desperate. “Do they know Rogelio is dead? Does everyone know but me?”

Patalarga responded. “Madam, I can assure you we don’t know anything.”

She looked at them all skeptically. Her brother and Henry nodded.

“Just to be clear, Rogelio is …?” asked Nelson.

“My little brother,” Noelia said.

“My cell mate,” said Henry. “My friend.”

The six of them made a wary circle, with Jaime pushing in close so they could feel the threat of him. Eric fidgeted. Nelson picked the plastic knife off the floor, and wiped its flimsy blade against his leg. It was Eric who told me this detail: he found it was almost tender, the way the actor cared for this prop, the way he wiped the blade as if it were real. During the performance, when Alejo murders the servant, Eric had been impressed. He remembers thinking: He looks like he could use it, and for next few minutes, Eric said, while they all spoke, Nelson held the knife at the ready, as if he might.

“How’s your mother now?” Henry asked.

“She was in a fit all afternoon,” Noelia answered. “I had to give her a sedative, the poor thing.”

“She’s ill?” asked Patalarga.

“She was fine until he came,” Jaime said.

Noelia interrupted. “No. No no no no no. That isn’t true, Jaime. It just isn’t.” Her shoulders were shaking now. “Mama’s been faltering. She doesn’t remember. She talks to our father all the time and he’s been dead for years. She doesn’t know the difference. But when you said Rogelio was dead … Well, you know what happened.”

“I’m sorry,” Henry said, not for the last time.

Noelia wiped a tear from her eye, and sighed. Henry would have offered her the presidential handkerchief, only it was dotted with blood. They were silent, out of respect for a woman’s tears.

“How did my brother die?” she asked finally.

Henry offered a weak smile, and would’ve answered, but Jaime spoke instead. “There was trouble, that’s all.”

His face was blank, impassive, and Noelia didn’t press him any further. She looked up, trying to catch his attention, but he had his eyes locked on Henry.